


my reasons for defying reason

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 01:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: All his life, Loki has only ever wanted one thing.





	my reasons for defying reason

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kirjoihin-kadonnut, for the prompt “thor & loki, post-infinity war because loki is alive of course, anything involving the long hug they both desperately need.”
> 
> I can also be found on Tumblr at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) and at [aflinley.com](https://www.aflinley.com/).
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

“We have to keep him sedated. He’s in no condition to—”

Loki’s eyes shot open and automatically he tried to sit up, feeling the unfamiliar light and air on skin. But he was restrained – attached to things? – and nothing was where it ought to be and Thor where was Thor?

Then the _pain_ hit him and he tried to scream, but nothing happened—

“Loki! Loki, I’m here. Do you understand me? I’m _here_.”

The Valkyrie’s face melted in and out of view, but she felt her gripping his hand.

“I’ve got you, Your Majesty. I’m not going to leave you again.”

Majesty? But… Thor?

He tasted something salty and dark in the back of his mouth and then everything went away, and he slept.

The next time he opened his eyes, he could at least identify that he was in a medical facility of some kind. And a highly primitive one at that, but he was beyond complaining. He tried to lick his lips with a tongue that felt swollen and dry, and manage to croak out a single, hopeful word.

“Thor?”

“Hey.”

Not Thor, but Valkyrie again. She dabbed his lips with a cool, damp cloth, and slid chips of ice in between his teeth one at a time, until his mouth felt a little more normal.

“Where…?” Oh _fuck_ that hurt. Speaking… breathing hurt. Everything hurt.

“Ship’s infirmary. We got picked up by Ravagers. I… _persuaded_ them that it’d be in their best interests to take us on as refugee passengers.”

That wasn’t what he’d intended to ask, but it was well that he know. “Mm. Mmmany?”

She hesitated, and he felt her hands on his forearm, patting and clutching softly. “Not many, no. Maybe about a thousand.”

So few… “You—” He grimaced and made an involuntary choke-click sound in his throat.

Valkyrie sighed and handed him a tablet and stylus. “You’re not going to be able to speak properly for a while, according to the doctor here. Even for an Asgardian, getting your throat crushed by a Titan is going to need time to heal.”

Loki raised his eyebrows and then scrawled, [But I’m not Asgardian.]

“So I’ve heard, but it’s not like being a Frost Giant means you’re going to recover from nearly being strangled to death that much faster, Your Majesty. You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

He frowned darkly at the title, and at that moment, the monitors attacked to his chest began to beep faster. [Thor?]

Valkyrie’s mouth tightened at the corners. “He’s gone.”

The words hit Loki’s brain and slid, like a rock across the ice, refusing to sink in, and he shook his head emphatically, scribbling on the tablet like a maniac. [No, he can’t be, he’s—]

“Gone,” repeated Valkyrie shortly. “By the time we got back, there were scavengers in the wreckage. Ravagers looking for spare parts and... others. Looking for spare parts.” Her tone told him plainly that he didn’t want clarification, and suddenly he felt sick, all the way down to the soles of his feet. “They must’ve got him.”

Loki’s vision blurred and his head swam, and for a second, he thought he was about to pass out. But he was still conscious. It wasn’t a dream, or a nightmare. It was real, all of it was horribly, sickeningly real.

“Can’t… see…” he forced out, neck and spine flaring with pain.

“You’re crying,” Valkyrie said.

“No, I… Thor… Thor…”

The sobs tore through him – almost literally, as he found out later; the force of his weeping ripped apart muscles and tendons that the ship’s doctor had already put back together once. But he couldn’t help himself.

 _It wasn’t supposed to end like this…_ he thought, as Valkyrie wrestled him back down on the bed and someone injected him with something that threw a heavy quiet blanket over his brain, _it was supposed to be me…_

When he woke again, hours later, he still hurt like seven hells, but at least he could think in a straight line. And he could breathe, which was a mercy. Even if his breathing sounded abnormally loud…

There was something on his face, and he was unable to turn his head. Frowning at the low metal ceiling, he lifted a careful hand and felt where his mouth and nose should be.

A mask.

He tensed involuntarily at the realization and the memory of his extradition from Midgard, and sparks went off behind his eyes. Whimpering, Loki felt at his neck and found an odd, high, collar-like contraption.

“It’s a brace,” he heard Valkyrie say, coming around to where he could see. “Your throat was crushed, Loki. Your neck needs to be immobilized until all the muscles and bones can heal. And that,” she added, when he gestured angrily to the mask, “is to allow you to breathe. You’ll have to take it off to eat, of course, but uh… well, you’re gonna be on the more boring sort of liquid diet for a while, so… what are you doing?” she demanded, as the de facto king of Asgard gingerly slid his feet to the floor.

Loki tested his balance, took a deep and very careful breath, and then made a curious two-handed gesture before his throat, rather in the manner of drawing a thread through the eye of a needle. A line of smooth green seidr hovered briefly in the air, and then vanished.

“Valkyrie?”

She blinked and took one step back. “Well, that’s convenient. And here I was looking forward to some peace and quiet—”

“We have to go to Midgard,” Loki said via the voice spell, in no uncertain terms.

Valkyrie rubbed her forehead and looked every single second of her three thousand years. “And do what, exactly?”

“That’s where Thanos is going. We have to stop him.”

“With what army? Loki, Thor is _dead_ ,” said Valkyrie, her own grief and guilt at being sent away transmuting into anger. “You are king now, you’re in charge of what is left of Asgard, you’ve got a responsibility to these people—”

“There won’t be anything left of Asgard at all, and half the universe’s blood will be on our heads, if we do nothing.” Loki’s form shimmered gold, and then he was wearing clothes Valkyrie had never seen before – not the Sakaarian tunic and trousers that he had altered to suit his own livery, but Asgardian-style fighting leathers of green and black, mounted with gold and silver.

Valkyrie was not convinced but she was, against her better judgment, impressed.

“Earth must have defenses of their own,” she countered again. “After all, they were able to beat _you_.”

He ignored the insult and focused on the facts. “They had Thor to help them. And Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet. He has the Power Gem and now thanks to me he has the Space Stone, because I could not bear to see my brother in pain. By now he will have found the Reality Gem, and that is also my fault – because I thought more highly of Asgard’s people than I did of the universe. It’s only a short step to him finding the remaining gems – two of which are on Earth. And then we will all be dead. This is _my doing_ , Brunnhilde – this is red on _my_ ledger. And if we fail to stop the Titan, I will not have it said of me that I saw the threat coming and did nothing.”

“And revenge for your brother? That’s what? Just a perk? Because I know you’re full of shit, Loki. That’s why you’re doing this. And it’s – it’s not – you’re grieving, Loki. You’ve got to see reason. You can’t just up and throw your life away, not now.”

_“I never wanted the throne! All I ever wanted was to be your equal!”_

_“Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side by side forever…”_

“If you’re not coming to Earth with me,” said Loki quietly, “you’ll need to keep the rest of Asgard together until I can rejoin you.”

Valkyrie looked at him for a moment, and then to his surprise, she laughed.

“I have to go with you. Otherwise you won’t come back.”

He smiled a little. “Would that sadden you?”

“It would mean I’d be in charge of rebuilding Asgard, and I don’t need that kind of pressure in my life, not at my age. That’s your job.”

“Yes.”

But it ought to have been Thor’s job.

“So what exactly is your plan for stopping Thanos? Unless it’s just ‘run screaming at him and hope you die in the attempt’, because if you’re _actually_ planning a suicide mission, I’m getting cuffs and tying you to the bed again.”

“That is not my plan,” he promised, carefully not mentioning that it might end up happening anyway. He had been king of Asgard before, after all. It was unspeakably tedious.

And it didn’t feel right, anymore. Taking Thor’s place.

“Then what _is_?” Valkyrie demanded. And then gasped when Loki’s eyes suddenly flared red, and in the creeping cerulean swirl of his hands, a square blue-and-silver object appeared that she had only ever seen before in books.

“As I told you – and Thanos – I’m not Asgardian. But you know what that means.”

Loki smiled, and the white teeth in his blue, marked face looked sharper than ever.

“He doesn’t.”

* * *

It ended in ice, and it ended in lightning.

Thanos lay dead on the forest floor of Wakanda, his hand still firmly within the Infinity Gauntlet, but the Gauntlet encased in ice so thick that even Thor’s axe, once wrenched from Thanos’s skull, could not break it.

“Can we bring Vision back with the Time Stone?” Steve demanded.

“In theory,” said Thor absently, “yes.” As much as he honored the mechanical warrior, he was not truly thinking of Vision at that moment. He bent and ran a careful hand over the ice keeping the Infinity Gems prisoner. “This is no ordinary ice, created by mere magic. I’ve seen frost of this kind only once before...”

A cold wind blew across the back of his neck, and he straightened and turned sharply, just as Steve and Natasha behind him snapped into defensive positions.

“Is that…?” he heard Natasha mutter in disbelief. Then, “Son of a bitch…”

A figure emerged from a seidr-crafted fog, a lean, exhausted man in green and black fighting leathers, with a golden horned helm over his black locks. A strange machine covered his nose and mouth and his neck was encircled by a high stiff brace, but the blue bleeding from what Thor could see of his face left behind a pair of very familiar, very astonished green eyes.

And from the air between them, came a single word, haunted and hopeful. “T-thor?”

Thor roared with inchoate delight, and would have launched himself at his brother, but that Loki did it first, hurling himself at Thor with such force that he actually knocked Stormbringer out of his hand.

“We couldn’t find you,” he heard Loki’s voice, choked with tears and located somewhere up around Thor’s ears, though Loki himself had his arms wrapped around Thor’s torso, his face pressed against Thor’s chest. “We thought… I thought…”

“I know,” Thor said, laughing as he cried, and pushing away Loki’s helm so that he could bury his face in Loki’s hair. “I thought the same of you.”


End file.
